BOOK
“Second Line Home | New Orleans Poems”
by Mona Lisa Saloy
$16.95 pb 9781612481005
$9.99 eBook 9781612481012
128 pages, February 2014
Distribution: Amazon, Baker & Taylor, iTunes, Kobo, Nook
ABOUT THE BOOK
In this celebration of life in death, Mona Lisa Saloy captures the solemn grief, ongoing struggle, and joyous processions of New Orleans after the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina. She knows the music of the neighborhood spoken and sung in affirmation of what is genuine and hopeful, as well as the despair of destruction that nature and politics heaped upon The Crescent City. Saloy’s details of down-home activities and use of local expressions convey the many cultures and voices of this unique city. In this ode to New Orleans there is joy and hope, and a passionate call to join the resilient Second Line.
In Second Line Home, poet Mona Lisa Saloy captures the spirit and cadence of New Orleans. The
book is at once a haunting poetic narrative of the horror of Hurricane Katrina and an uplifting,
healing song of personal and collective resilience. Saloy tells of muck, stink, doors swollen with
water, despair, and bottled-up hurt, while finding hope, sustenance, and solace in familial love,
spirituality, and the Creole cultural traditions that nurtured her. Saloy’s artistry is particularly
evident in her use of metaphors: “Broke his heart in half like a walnut split down the middle.” And
she seasons her aesthetic with Creole vernacularisms such as hucklebucks (frozen drinks) and
meliton (mirliton). And naturally, there is the inevitable remix of pulsating music for which the city
is famous: Johnny Adams, Fats Domino, and Alan Toussaint. This is a collection of poems that must
be read! —Tony Bolden
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Author, folklorist, essayist, and poet, Dr. Mona Lisa Saloy is professor of English at Dillard University. She previously published Red Beans & Ricely Yours, which won the 2005 T. S. Eliot Prize and the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Prize in 2006. Saloy’s literary voice represents the African-American and the New Orleans Creole cultural experience.
Posted By BOOK, 22 Oct 2019